SCARR

Reuniting families separated by adoption with a South Carolina Connection to register click here

***New Jersey recently passed law for adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates - effective January 1, 2017***

Fundamental right to know: Judge Wade S. Weatherford, Jr., Seventh Judicial Circuit Court, SC, said
in a ruling on an adoptee’s petition to gain access to adoption records:
"Mankind is possessed of no greater urge than to try to understand the
age-old question: ’Who am I?’ ’Why am I?’... Those emotions and anxieties
that generate our thirst to know the past are not superficial and
whimsical. They are real and they are ’good cause’ under the law of man
and God."Judge Weatherford, Jr -

Adoption Laws are exercised by individual state law - and not a federal law. The state law that applies to an adoption is where the adoption took place which is usually where the adoption parents resided or filed the adoption decree. In S.C. we have found adoptions that went thru the state where the parents were not a full resident at the time. The law applies to the state
where the adoption took place which is usually where the adopted parents lived
at the time the adoptee
was placed in their home.

Confidentiality in adoption means that those who are separated DO NOT and CAN NOT know each other.
In most states there are a minimum of seven ways people CAN and DO find and know each other without having an original birth certificate.,

Everyone has the right to refuse contact.
That is the ONLY degree of confidentiality that exits, and it exists whether you do or do not have your original birth certificate.

Several ways adult adoptees and birth parents can find each other under the sealed birth certificate system in most states

GOOD CAUSE - Under the law in most states, all sealed birth certificates may be accessed with a showing of good cause. The birth certificate accessed could be the one that locates the one birth parent or adoptee who does not want to be found.

SUPPORT GROUPS - Support groups have a very good reputation for helping triad members access birth information and locate birth relatives. The relative they find may be the one
birth parent or adoptee that does not want to be found.

BLACK MARKET - For a price, most people can be found if the information has not been falsified,.Those with means can find; those without cannot

AGENCY SEARCHES - Finding one member of the birth family gives possible access to all members of the birth family. Access to any member may lead to the one birth parent who does not want to be found

INTERNET - Finding on the internet is rapidly becoming a science. This can lead to the one birth parent or adoptee who does not want to be found.

IDENTIFYING INFORMATION - given to adoptive parents or keeping the adoptee's original birth name could locate that one birth parent or adoptee who does not want to be found.

PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS - can find the one birth parent or adoptee who does not want to found.

Sealed birth certificates are a symbol of a confidentiality that does not exist - Not when people can and do find each other daily. Unsealed birth certificates are a symbol of an adoptee's identity and their civil rights as a citizen.